


oh, if you return to me

by cecilia095



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, College, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, New York City, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: She feels like she can be just...Rachelaround Finn Hudson, and no one's ever made her feel okay with being just Rachel before, not like this.AU.





	oh, if you return to me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for a good soulmate AU, and I don't think very many soulmate fics exist for these two, so... I wrote one.
> 
> I wrote [this one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5854627) for New Girl a few years back and it's still one of my favorite things I've ever written, so I'm doing it again.
> 
> In summary: This story is set in a crazy little universe where everyone has a soulmate, and your soulmate's initials become tattooed on your wrist when you're ready to find them. But are THEY ready to find YOU? Dun dun dun... (Literally copy/pasted that from the first fic. Lazy. Sorry. Enjoy, babies.)
> 
> \--
> 
> The title of this fic comes from the song "Beacon Hill" by Damien Jurado.

Rachel's eighteen now, so she's supposed to be  _a pro_ at getting rejected by non-soulmates, at realizing her dreams are bigger than some  _boy_ who isn't even  _it_ , but she still cries in the parking lot of Carmel High and sobs his name as if that's going to make him change his mind about all of this.

"Rachel," he breathes, "I can't help it that the initials on my arm aren't yours, okay? I'm just as hurt by this as you are."

"No you're not!" She's sobbing, still, because she's  _Rachel_ and she's dramatic and she appreciates a good cry, sometimes. "You literally left me in the car after school yesterday to make out with her in the parking lot. And you didn't even hide it behind the perfectly-placed bush out front; you kissed her right in front of me for twelve, uncomfortable minutes."

Jesse sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and takes a few steps back from her, probably so she won't reach out and touch his arm again. "I had to make sure it was her."

"Her initials are tattooed on you  _forever_ , Jesse. I think you're sure."

"I'm sorry, Rachel. I really liked you for the two months I liked you."

—

She kisses Sam Evans a week before graduation, a week before her life is supposed to change  _forever_ , a week before she leaves this stupid town and never comes back again.

"I've liked you since the eighth grade," he admits, and Rachel tries not to blush at the confession, "but my wrist says 'M.J'."

"There's a tattoo removal shop down the street," she jokes in a whisper, but Sam doesn't blink. "Do you - do you  _know_ an M.J.?"

Sam shakes his head, squints for a second like he's trying to remember if he might've met M.J. before. His _soulmate_. The other half of his being. No big deal or anything.

"So are you cancelling our Breadstix date tonight?", she asks seriously.

"Kind of."

—

New York is different than Ohio, than Carmel, than boys like Jesse St. James and Sam Evans and that weirdo, Jacob Ben Israel who claims he's got her initials on his wrist even though she's seen both of his arms and he doesn't have a soulmate for  _shit_. 

New York is dirty, and expensive (seriously - she's paying half of the rent in this little studio she's sharing with a stranger she met through Facebook who also happens to be attending NYADA with her), but it also ignites a flame inside of her she never wants to burn out. She feels alive the second her dads close the door behind them and say their goodbyes and their, ' _Never get into an unmarked taxi, don't go to the corner store without your rape whistle, and don't even_ think _about opening the windows while you're practicing - we don't want strange New York men being intrigued by the voice coming out of this apartment_ ' spheel. 

NYADA is amazing. Seriously. Of all of the things in her Manifestation Diary (- what, you don't have one?), NYADA was always number one. She loves her classes, she loves her instructors, she learns to even love  _ballet_ , and she fits in. People like her here; they like her voice, and they appreciate her talent, and she doesn't want to hide in her apartment all day like she thought she'd want to at first. Rachel Berry  _needed_ New York, and maybe it needed her, too.

Her roommate, Blaine, is nice enough. He always keeps the fridge stocked with oat milk, and he asks her how her day went after they get home for the night, and he isn't too bad to look at, either, so.

"Rachel?" Blaine's sitting at the kitchen table reading over sheet music. He's auditioning for the fall musical too -  _Fiddler on the Roof_ , one of Rachel's all-time favorites.

She wraps both of her hands around her coffee mug and presses her lips together, looking at him with wide eyes from her spot on the couch. "If this is about whether you should read for Tevye, the answer is always going to be yes from me. We have to make our mark as freshman  _somewhere_ , right? I think the seniors were just screwing with us about freshman not getting any leading roles."

Blaine looks overwhelmed at all of that, but Rachel doesn't see why. She thinks he's talented enough for a role like Tevye; why doesn't he? 

"I... I actually just forgot to ask you how your day was, and I felt like a jerk."

Endearing. As. Hell. She's impressed, raising a brow at him. "Oh? My - my day was fine, Blaine, thank you. Yours?"

He drops the highlighter he's holding over his sheet music onto the table, and he just stares at her before saying, "Crappy. I don't feel like I'm loving NYADA as much as everyone else is."

"Really? Everyone at NYADA loves  _you_. You're like, the stud of the freshman class."

Blaine blushes, looking down at his lap instead of at her. She thinks she's made him nervous, like maybe he's getting the same vibe about all of... this, just like she's getting. She doesn't want to come right out and say it, because only weirdos and serial killers talk about soulmates with someone they barely know, but Rachel thinks coincidences are silly, and maybe there's a reason she connected with a stranger as lovely as Blaine in a Facebook group for aspiring Broadway hopefuls. 

"I didn't want to say anything to scare you, but do you - do you have a soulmate?" She's a lot of things, but she's never been shy.

"I - If I do, I'm too scared to tell them." She has no idea what the hell he means by that. "But no, I don't have anyone's initials on my wrist. Do you?"

Okay, so maybe it  _isn't_ her, or - or maybe they're just not at Soulmate Status yet. She's read  _a lot_ about Soulmate Status, you know. She can practically recite the entire Wikipedia page on it.

She quietly shakes her head, her eyes still right on Blaine. "I'm only eighteen, so I - My dads, they didn't meet each other until they were twenty-six."

"Two dads, huh?" Blaine smiles a little, and it's the first time this whole conversation he smiles. "That's neat."

"' _Neat_ '," she repeats, "yeah."

—

"Rachel, right?"

Rachel's seen this guy around once, maybe twice. Three times, maybe? Whatever. She remembers his face but she can't remember him by name. He tried out for the same part as Blaine, for Tevye, but his audition wasn't as polished as Blaine's was, and the director cut him off in the middle of the song to ask him how long he'd practiced, and then suggest he read for a smaller role like Perchik instead.

"Yes. Rachel Berry." She holds out her hand confidently. "And I  _wish_ I remembered your name, but I suck. Sorry. It's been a really long week. You auditioned for the musical though, right?"

He nods and gives her a little smile at the corner of his mouth, and it's one of the nicest smiles she's seen since she's been at NYADA. Genuine. He's handsome, when she really gets a look at him, and she thinks for a second - just a second - that if he gets the role of Perchik and she gets the role of Hodel, he wouldn't be the  _worst_ stage kiss she's ever had.

"I'm Finn, and yeah, I - I'm guessing you saw me get embarrassed by the director's comment then, right?"

Rachel shakes her head insistently and tells him not to be embarrassed by that. "I really liked your audition, but honestly, Perchik is still a pivotal role in the play."

"Yours was better. They asked you to read for like,  _every one_."

She clears her throat and corrects him, "Just the girls."

"Do you live on campus?"

"No. I actually have a small studio a few blocks away. I room with a friend."

"Ah." His eyes look a little curious now, Rachel thinks, so she elaborates.

"A - It's a male friend, but we're not dating or anything. I merely have  _no_ time for relationships. NYADA keeps us all little too busy, don't you think?"

Finn puffs his cheeks out a little bit and goes, "A little? I've never been more overwhelmed in my life, but I love it here." Then he tells her about his apartment, how it's a little bigger than a studio because he's got two roommates, Puck and Santana, and that, "Rent is  _nothing_ , you guys should find one more", and that he isn't interested in dating until he doesn't feel so overwhelmed by this city, and this school, and all of that.

Rachel nods in understanding, and then she pulls her cell phone out of her pocket to check the time. "I've got to get back to my apartment to study my lines for the callbacks. Will I see you there?"

"I'll be there. I got a callback for Perchik, actually, so..."

Just then, in that very moment, Finn lifts his own cell phone out of his pocket and she sees it, only a little bit, but it's there. Etched in black are two small letters she can't make out from this angle, but Finn has a soulmate and she doesn't know why she feels a pang of jealousy, why her heart races, why everyone seems to be getting their tattoos except for her, so she just awkwardly snaps her head away from him and shouts, "See you there then!" over her shoulder. 

—

"Can you keep a secret?"

Blaine is, yet again, at the kitchen table reading Tevye's lines. He must have them perfected by now, no? He just nods and waves her over with a hand, so she sits down next to her roommate.

"I met a guy today," she starts, and Blaine cuts her off to go, "Like, your  _soulmate_?"

"No, just - I don't know. It was weird. My stomach felt funny when he asked me if my name was Rachel, and then we were talking for a little bit, and when his sleeve rolled up I saw two little black letters on his wrist, and I freaked out."

Blaine can't help but laugh at her. " _Why_?", he asks. "Do you like this dude and now you're like, eternally crushed he's not your soulmate?"

Rachel shakes her head incessantly and smacks Blaine on the arm. "I had a thirty second conversation with him, Blaine, of  _course_ I'm not crushed this random stranger from our school who I had  _one_ encounter with is not my soulmate. It was just... weird seeing a tattoo so hidden like that. Why isn't he showing it off if he has one? I would flash mine everywhere like a little diamond ring."

"Well, not everyone meets their soulmate at the same time, Rachel," Blaine tells her. "My mom got her tattoo two years after my dad got his, and they knew each other for ten years before  _that_. It's not always as simple as it should be."

Rachel's just quiet, but she thinks about what he's saying and understands what he means. Some people are ready to meet their soulmates, and some people have to be eased into this whole thing; the whole ' _There's another half of me living out there somewhere and once I find them, that's_ _it_ ' thing.

"Can  _you_ keep a secret?", he asks her in the same way she just asked him a minute ago.

"Of course I can," she says confidently.

Blaine's hands are shaking now, and the dramatic part of Rachel can't help but be immediately concerned, and anxious, and - Wait, is he about to roll up the sleeves of that sweater vest and show her a big, black, 'R.B.' on his wrist?

"I - I do have a soulmate tattoo, but I'm too scared to find out who it's for, or who 'K.H.' even _is_ , because I'm -", he pauses to swallow, "I'm  _gay_ , Rachel."

Rachel, as dramatic as she may be sometimes, reacts quite simply to this. She forgets the few minutes where she thought she was Blaine's secret soulmate, forgets all of those times she'd come home from class and he'd lovingly ask her how her day was, remind her he went grocery shopping for all of her favorite vegan foods and that they're all organized by category in the fridge, forgets all of that to just say, "You shouldn't be scared to be yourself. Your soulmate will understand that."

He reaches over and grabs her hand, squeezing her fingers. "You think so?"

She squeezes his fingers back. "I  _know_ so."

—

Rachel's eyes scan the cast list so fast she almost misses her name, until Santana Lopez yells out, "Congrats, dwarf!" from a few feet behind her. "You got Hodel. We're sisters. I got Chava."

They've talked a few times during callbacks, and she knows he's roommates with Finn, but she can't help but wonder for a second if _this_ is who that secret tattoo of his belongs to. She's... decent, Rachel guesses, aside from the 'dwarf'-calling and all, but she can't really picture Santana being someone like Finn's type, and she also doesn't even know why the hell she's thinking about a stranger's wrist and a stranger's soulmate  _this_ much.

"Congratulations to you too," Rachel says, turning around to smile at Santana. "I guess freshman  _do_ get leading roles, huh?"

"Well yeah, my roomie snatched Perchik up, and now you get to make out with him at rehearsals every week," Santana says with a snicker. "He's a shitty kisser."

 _Not_ _something a soulmate would say_ , Rachel thinks.

—

Rachel is so busy rehearsing for  _Fiddler on the Roof_ that she forgets about soulmates, about tattoos and boys and really, anything else except nailing _"Far From The Home I Love"_ as if she hasn't been singing it since she was three years old.

Sam Evans texts her one random day in October, and she forgot about Sam Evans and soulmates and tattoos and boys until... well... now.

**'i never met M.J.'**

**'but i can't stop thinking about how beautiful you are'**

**'and how i wish i told you sooner'**

**'before we were in different states'**

**'maybe we can see each other when we come home for thanksgiving break'**

Rachel simply types back:  **'We aren't soulmates, and you shouldn't settle. M.J. is just as out there as whoever my soulmate is. Take care, Sam.'**

He never answers her back, and a few weeks later, Rachel scans his Facebook and sees he's tagged in a photo kissing a girl's cheek. Mercedes Jones is her name, and it doesn't take a genius to find out they met at UCLA (thank you, location tags), and that  _yes_ , that  _is_ M.J.

—

Finn Hudson randomly asks her for her phone number after rehearsal one afternoon, and she just grabs his phone from him and starts to type in the numbers, but then pauses mid-way and looks up at him with an arched brow. "For like...  _Fiddler_ stuff?"

A boy has never flat out asked Rachel for her phone number before.

"Not necessarily," he says, shrugging. "Just... to talk to you."

—

Rehearsals aren't hard for Rachel, because she's known this entire musical inside and out since she performed it at the JCC as Bielke, but everything else starts to be. She never gets invited to parties by any friends, not even any friends from the musical, Blaine stops leaning on her and finds a new friend, Kurt, to talk about all of the crap they used to talk about with, and she can't even remember the last time a boy looked in her _direction_.

Here's the thing: Boys are  _not_ the most important thing in Rachel Berry's life, but would it be nice to have someone to stroll through Central Park with on a fall day? Yes. Someone to hold hands with on the way to rehearsal? Obviously. Someone to text cute little things to in the mornings, and in between classes, and late at night when she's up practicing her lines because she has this irrational fear of choking and forgetting them all on opening night? Of course it would; she's not going to lie about that.

Finn is always very decent to her. More than decent, really. He's kind of the nicest person she's ever met, she thinks. They practice their duet and their lines together almost daily, but they've already nailed both of those things by like, Rehearsal Number Four. Part of Rachel is just pretending to not know them as well as she does just as an excuse to spend more time with someone who makes her feel a little better about herself, and she wonders if Finn is doing the same, or if he just really has a shitty memory. 

But soon, they start spending more of their days together. Like, he'll text her if a movie he thinks she'd like is streaming on Netflix, and she'll text him and tell him a song she hears in the coffee shop that she thinks belongs on his playlist, and then they'll meet up after class and just talk. About everything. Sometimes she shares his lunch with him because she always packs a homemade one and he runs out of meals on his plan faster than anyone they know. She knows his favorite sports teams, and he knows her favorite Barbra Streisand era. He holds doors open for her, he tells her how talented she is, and even asks her to help coach him with his singing. She tells him he doesn't need coaching, but he insists, because she's the ' _Best damn one in there, Rachel_ ', and she doesn't argue. 

The real thing that gets her is, she feels like she can be just... _Rachel_ around Finn Hudson, and no one's ever made her feel okay with being just Rachel before, not like this. He doesn't even question her; just sits there with his hand under his chin most of the time, smiling at quirks other people have blatantly told her are annoying as hell. She apologizes, and he shushes her and tells her that he's just glad to have someone in his life who lets him complain about the Yankees and the smell of New York City subways to, and she promises him he's allowed to bitch to her about anything and everything as long as it's mutual.

"How do you like it here so far, like overall?", he asks her one day, a week before the musical. They're sitting at a table outside doing their homework, barely talking, for once.

"It's great," she lies, but it's like he catches onto the fact that she is right away, or at least she feels like he can tell, so she changes her answer. "It's... I  _loved_ it at first, but now I just feel lost. My roommate, he was my only friend, and now he's seeing somebody who I'm  _sure_ he's going to fall madly in love with, and I have like...  _no_ friends. Your roommate, Santana, she called me the 'Theater Troll' the other day, you know."

"Santana's just mean because Puck stopped hooking up with her after he realized the initials on his wrist were Quinn's, and - I'll save that story for another time." Rachel's glad, because it sounds like it'd make for a great Friday night. Then Finn shakes his head and goes, "And hey, I'm your friend."

"I didn't mean  _you_ , I just -"

"Well, I'm just tellin' you that we're friends. I like spending time with you, and I'm guessing you like spending time with me, because I  _know_ you've had those lines memorized since the audition, but you keep wanting to practice, which is fine, because I could use all the practice I can get."

Rachel's face turns instantly pink, and she knows Finn isn't an idiot. "I - I  _do_ like spending time with you. You make me feel liked."

"Well, that's because I like you, silly," he says, so easily. It's crazy how effortlessly he makes her feel... you know...  _good_. "I'm sorry that my roommate is an asshole to you, but she doesn't hate you - she just hates herself. She wants to be your friend, Rach. She even mentioned something about inviting you over on Sunday for pong."

Rachel arches a brow at him. "Like...  _ping pong_?"

"Beer pong," he says with a laugh. "You ever play?"

"No interest or desire," she says bluntly, "but if you're going to be there, I guess -"

"We can hide in the corner and talk shit about their pong skills," he jokes. "Just come. Have fun and be an eighteen-year-old. The musical can wait."

—

So the musical waits.

Rachel freaks out for a solid  _hour_ about what to wear, but then Blaine's friend (Friend? Boyfriend? Whatever he is, she heard them kissing the other day through the very thin bedroom walls.) comes over and effortlessly chooses two pieces from her closet. "These two. The skirt goes  _perfectly_ with the top. Just make sure it stays tucked in; it'll show off your boobs more, and college guys  _love_ boobs, I think. I wouldn't really know."

She smooths out her skirt and knocks on the door to the apartment, and another guy answers. He must be the other roommate, Puck, and he's holding the waist of one of the prettiest girls Rachel's ever seen in person. Seriously. If she looked like this girl, her initials would probably be on approximately  _ten_ wrists.

"Puck. And this is my leading lady, Quinn. You're that Berry chick in the play with my bro, right?"

Rachel nods, reaching a hand out to shake both of theirs. "Rachel, but..."

"Right, Rachel. I think Finn told us you hate the name 'Berry' and _not_ to call you that, but I was only half paying attention."

She scrunches her nose, both at the nickname and at the mention of Finn mentioning her. It makes her stomach flip a little bit, but she doesn't want to spend too much time in her head, thinking about Finn thinking about her. She just wants to  _find_ Finn, because parties make her anxious and she's never thrown a ping pong ball into a little red cup in her life. 

"Rachel!" Finn's probably at least like, three beers deep, or he's just really happy to see her.

He leans in and gives her a hug, and it's definitely Option One: three beers deep. She smells Bud Light on his breath and then he holds a bottle out to her. "You don't have to drink," he says. "I'm just glad you came and got out of that dusty apartment."

"I happen to have a dusting schedule, Finn Hudson," she says, clearly offended he implied her apartment could be anything except sparkling clean. "And before you say ' _Of course you do, Rachel Berry_ ', just... I'll try a sip, okay?"

He nods, pleasantly surprised at that, and just hands over his already-open Bud Light to her and lets her take a swig of it, clearly anticipating a dramatic Rachel Berry reaction.

She scrunches her nose and curls her lips up like he just made her drink melted dog shit, or something. "Oh. Finn. It's _nasty_."

"Well, good thing I have sparkling cider hidden in a cooler over there for you," he says, pointing. "No one will know it's non-alcoholic so you don't have to worry about 'not fitting in', you know. We'll dodge that Santana Snark for tonight, hm?" That's in air quotes, the 'not fitting in' part, and Rachel silently thinks about how wonderful this guy is being to her and wonders  _why_. He knows she's afraid of being laughed at by everyone at NYADA for being the only one not all boozed-up at this apartment.

Rachel wordlessly follows Finn to a red cooler in the back of the apartment, and he grabs a drink out for her, opening it so she doesn't inevitably slice her finger open on the bottle top, which, for some reason, she thinks Finn knows  _may_ happen if he lets her open it himself.

"Cheers." He sips his beer, she sips her cider, and then he takes a seat at one of the armchairs by the TV. "Sit, babe."

She gets nervous at how to respond to the 'babe' slip, but she just ignores it because that's easier right now.

"There's no room!" She yells over the music Finn's roomie just started blasting, and then she realizes he's tapping his leg for her to just plop down there. "I - I'll hurt you."

“You probably weigh one-hundred pounds, and I’m inviting you to sit here. The apartment is getting crowded. C’mere.”

So she doesn't argue with him and sits down on his right leg, squirming uncomfortably until she gets semi-comfortable in his lap. She hasn't sat in anyone's lap like this since the Jesse days, and it doesn't feel as strange as she thought it would.

He's looking at her like she's the only person in this cramped, stuffy apartment, and it makes her head spin - in a good way; as good as heads can spin. 

"There are  _so_ many people here, Finn," she says in a quick breath, and he just stares at her. "I've never been to a party before, you know."

He takes his hand and rubs the top of her arm gently, and she wishes she had the confidence to act like this toward him, the way he acts so  _natural_ around her. She's not silly; she knows they're just friends, because they've never talked about being anything else, but sometimes - Sometimes she wants to ask him to roll up the sleeves of those polo shirts he's always wearing and ask him to take a peek at the tattoo she's not supposed to know is there. It would, of course, lead to disappointment and heartache, because obviously if his wrist said 'R.B.' he'd tell her, right?

—

She wakes up the morning after opening night to a bouquet of red roses and sunflowers - interesting combination - on the kitchen table. "Blaine?"

He stares at her all sleepy-eyed and shrugs. "Not me. I think there's a note, though."

**'To my favorite co-star, R.B.,**

**Thanks for making my first college musical way less awkward and scary than I thought it would be. We killed it.**

**F.H.'**

—

They kiss for the first time after Party Number Two. It's at Kitty and Marley's place, these two freshman girls who had auditioned against Rachel for Hodel in the musical, and it only happens because Rachel freaks out over a tequila shot someone made her take with the group.

First, she races to the bathroom with the sudden urge to puke her entire insides up, holding her mouth with her hands and only letting go to bang on the locked bathroom door like a madwoman. "Open this damn door, or I  _will_ throw up all over it! And that's not a threat, I just... I really need to upchuck!" 

Someone's laughing behind her. Finn, of course, she sees, when she turns around. She's still nauseous, because she's never had a shot of alcohol before, and tequila is  _repulsive_. 

"Not funny, Hudson. I want that boy who gave me tequlia removed from the premises. Kicked out of school. _Sued_."

Finn's still laughing, and he grabs onto her wrists and brings her into the corner of the hallway, pressing her up against the wall. "Just stand still. You're nauseous because you almost broke the bathroom door with your fist."

"I hate parties, Finn. I - I really appreciate you inviting me to them, because I know you're just trying to include me, but the smell of alcohol makes me anxious and I don't even need to throw up anymore, I just need to  _pee_ , but I'm pretty sure I hear moans behind that bathroom door right now and I'm willing to bet a good amount of money that one of those moans is coming from Santana, and -"

Finn shushes her, pressing his index finger to her lip. He stops and stares at her for a second, like he always does, but it's different this time. It looks like he's trying to say something, or maybe he's just drunk and finding a way to politely tell her to just leave the party, then. It takes her a second to realize what he's doing, and when he takes a piece of her hair and tucks it behind her ear, she jumps.

"Rachel."

"I - I taste like tequila."

"I  _like_ tequila," he assures her, and then he leans in, and she, for once in her stubborn, stubborn life, lets him take the lead.

It's the best kiss of her life.

—

"So do you have a soulmate or not, Dwarf? I honestly can't tell; your vibe is  _super_ strange."

Rachel glares at the girl to her right and shushes her. They won't get in trouble for talking during this lecture, but they  _should_ be paying attention and taking notes, and Rachel is a rule-follower. She knows Santana isn't, but there are  _plenty_ of other seats in this hall for her to sit in; she has a slew of other people to bother about this.

"Why does it matter to you?"

"Because," Santana says in a breath, "I don't, but all of my stupid friends are starting to get their tattoos, and if one more fuckboy gets a soulmate before me, I'm going to burn their tattoo off with a blow torch. I don't get it! I'm a nice person. Sort of."

"Oh, are you?" Rachel asks, still a little taken aback by the whole blow torch to the tattoo thing. "I -," she whispers really lowly, because she's afraid of: 1. Getting caught  _not_ taking notes on this very boring subject she stopped paying attention to before Santana got her attention and 2. Anyone hearing her talk about soulmates with Santana Lopez.

Santana interrupts before she can finish, though. "Quinn Fabray's initials literally appeared on Puckerman the morning after he had a threesome with me and a chick from my ballet class. It's not fair."

"Wow. And he just... dropped you?"

Santana wiggles a finger at Rachel and shakes her head fervently. "Oh, no, sweetie, we were never together. His hair-do resembles that of a fucking rabid  _skunk_ and he buys the cheapest condoms that 7-Eleven sells. His credit score also sucks, so. He was just an easy lay, and he was, you know, _there_."

"So why are you pissed, then? It sounds like you were just using him out of boredom."

"I'm pissed because I'm a lesbian, Rachel, okay?"

Um. This is a conversation that could've waited until after lecture was over, no?

Rachel doesn't really know how to respond, so she just nods.

"I'm in love with the chick from my ballet class. Brittany. She's - You won't know her because she pulled out of the musical to teach at this dance school uptown five nights a week. I've been staring at every inch of her body for over a month and I still don't see a tattoo anywhere, but I  _know_ she has my initials on her somewhere."

"Then why don't you have hers anywhere on you?", Rachel questions. 

"Because I'm a bitch. And a coward. I want her to make the first move because I'm scared, Berry. I'm the only one of my friends who isn't really  _ready_ , but I wish I were, because I - I love her, Rachel."

Rachel swallows thickly.

"Well, besides Finn. I joke and say he'll get his tattoo when Britts and I are on Baby Number Three. He's never even talked about soulmates to me before."

"H-He hasn't?" Rachel doesn't know why her heart is racing, but it is. 

Santana shrugs as casually as ever. "Nope. Oh well. He'd make a shitty boyfriend anyway. He  _always_ forgets to buy milk and I hate his stupid polo shirts."

—

Rachel Berry is a lot of things, and right now, she's about to be blunt. Or... you know... she's going to _try_. Confrontation is not her strongest suit. She's confused, because her tattoo doesn't exist and she's not supposed to know his  _does_ , but he makes her feel all of these things inside she doesn't even know how to begin to describe, and she just... She has to see if it's there. She has to see if he feels the same way.

So they're sitting splitting a PB and J in his apartment, and no one else is home. Santana is waitressing nights now at one of the diners by the school for extra cash, and Puck is shacked up in Quinn's dorm, doing things  _soulmates_ do, Rachel guesses.

Finn just finished telling her about how he ended up here, at NYADA. "It started with the drums, and then I just... I started singing, too, and I didn't stop. I think music makes the rest of my problems seem like,  _smaller_ , you know what I mean?"

She knows exactly what he's trying to say, but she doesn't respond. She grabs onto his knuckles with her hand, giving his hand a little squeeze. "Finn," she breathes out.

"Hm?"

"I had a full-blown conversation about soulmates with your roommate the other day," she starts.

Finn raises a brow. "Who,  _Puck_? God, he dates Quinn Fabray for two months and suddenly he's an expert on soulmates. Rach, when I met Puck, he was throwing kids who talked about soulmates in dumpsters, sleeping with girls whose initials he couldn't even  _tell you_ , he's -"

"Why have we never talked about soulmates?", she interrupts, and Finn drops his half of the PB and J and just presses his lips together, looking at her like she grew three heads. She wants to put her foot in her mouth, but he starts to answer.

"Because I don't want you to have a panic attack, Rachel," he says flatly.

"What? Why would I have a panic attack, Finn?! God, I tell you about the  _one time_ I choked on stage during a recital and you hold that against me?"

"No." He stands up now, and Rachel gets immediately nervous. He starts to roll up the sleeve of his shirt right by his wrist, and  _oh God, this_ is _a panic attack_ , Rachel thinks. It's another girl, and he's about to tell her who, and that they can't see each other anymore, and that their kiss and their being friends and their being secretly and not-so-secretly almost in love with each other, at this point, and -

"It's because I  _have_ a soulmate, but she doesn't have her tattoo yet, and I - Well, I'm a patient guy, but I'm also not trying to set myself up for heartbreak if she isn't who I think she is."

Rachel blinks rapidly, and then he does it. He rolls up his sleeve and she has an internal panic attack, for real, because he shows his wrist right to her, and etched right there are the letters: 'R.B'.

"How - Are - Are you sure that's -"

"I'm sure it's you, I have been since the first time we talked after  _Fiddler on the Roof_ auditions. That's why I asked you your name. I wanted to make sure I got your initials right, but I already knew. I - I don't know if we are anymore, though, because I don't see a tattoo anywhere on you."

"Finn..."

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything."

—

So she doesn't.

They don't talk for three days, which is the longest they've gone without speaking since school started. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving break, and she wants to find him before she leaves for Ohio, because that would make it  _eight_ days, and she honestly doesn't know if she can ignore Finn for eight days.

She rolls over in bed and looks at the alarm clock next to her, which reads: **11:34 PM**. If they really  _are_ soulmates, he's awake, too, feeling the same, shitty way Rachel is feeling.

Soulmates have a tether, her Aunt Sue once told her. She was six when she asked about soulmates for the first time.

 _"When you love someone, they're a part of you. It's like you're attached by this invisible tether and no matter how far away you are, you can always feel them_ _,"_ she explained. Rachel never forgot those words.

She pulls her cell phone out from under her pillow and hovers her thumb over his name for a few seconds before hitting 'Call', and he answers on the third ring.

"Did I wake you?", is the first thing she asks, whispering so Blaine won't hear her from his room. He has a 5 A.M. flight home tomorrow.

She hears him take a deep breath on the other end. "I knew you'd get scared," he says. "I wasn't trying to scare you, I just - I've been hiding it from you for awhile now, and I'm kind of sick of wearing long sleeves everyday. They're super itchy."

Again: He's so calm, and she's a mess. She bites down on her lip and thinks about what she's going to say next, because she didn't plan on any of this. "I don't know why I don't have my tattoo yet, Finn. I'm so scared that I don't have a soulmate after all, and I'm even more scared of it not being  _you_." He says nothing back, and she sighs. "I know we only met in the beginning of the school year, but the whole Soulmate Theory goes: ' _You know when you know_ ', and I - I'm so frustrated because you know and I know, Finn, but what - what if my initials don't come?"

She's crying now, just so softly into her palm so Blaine doesn't wake up, because he  _will_  murder her if he doesn't get any sleep before his flight.

"Wait, you - you know?"

She nods, sobbing into her palm still, and then realizes he can't  _see_ her nod. "Y-Yeah," she says gently. 

"Look, it's late, Rach, so why don't we just - why don't we talk about this some more when we get back from break. We'll go home, see our families, stuff our faces, and then meet each other back here in five days, okay?"

She wipes at the tears still falling from her eyes and goes, "Okay. Have a good break, Finn."

"From you?", he asks, and he's laughing a little bit, she can hear it in his voice. "Never. Goodnight, Rachel. I'll miss you."

—

She peeks at her wrist at least six times during Thanksgiving dinner, and her dad tells her to stop being fidgety and playing with her sleeves.

Five days pass and  _nothing_ , no 'F.H.'.

—

"I got my tattoo!" 

Santana never looks happy to see her (or anyone, really), but she's racing down the hall of the dance department basically  _jumping_ , and Rachel steadies her by placing both of her arms on her wrists.

Rachel, still internally bitter that she spent the entire Thanksgiving break looking down at her wrists more than at any of her relatives who just wanted to talk about New York, and NYADA, and the musical, and boys and parties, just smiles and says, "That's wonderful, Santana" in one, fast breath.

"I told Brittany last night, and then she showed me hers. I - I don't know how the hell it happened so fast, but I'm  _so_ glad it did."

—

She's laying in bed, sprawled out on top of the covers, after a long, exhausting test in her Dance Theory class when someone knocks on her bedroom door and startles her. 

"Blaine? You don't have to knock."

The doorknob opens slowly, and then all at once, until she sees it's not her roomie. "Hey, Rach. I missed you."

Her heart hurts when she sees that it's Finn, because she's so disappointed in herself, in her damn wrist, and she's heartbroken because all she wanted to do was come back from Ohio and let him know that it  _is_ him, and show him her wrist, and -

He doesn't even seem to care about all of that. He just sits at the edge of her bed and places a hand over her kneecap. "Hey. You look tired. Pretty, of course, but tired. Are you okay? Are - Are  _we_ okay?"

"We're - I don't know what a ' _we_ ' is, Finn! My heart hurts  _so_ badly because I hate disappointing people. I wanted to come back and show you my tattoo, because I was _so_ confident I'd be flying back to New York with your initials on my wrist, but I'm still here, my wrist empty as ever. I just want us to be able to start our lives as  _soulmates_ , Finn, but how the hell are we supposed to do that when we don't even know if we're supposed to be together or not?"

He takes a deep breath and sits up a little straighter. "Tattoo or not, I still want to be with you, Rachel."

"You  _do_? But what if - What if it's not me or it's not you? What if my tattoo says something completely different? 'R.B.' may not even be me! There are three freshman in my Dance Theory class with the same initials alone."

"I spent all Thanksgiving break thinking about it, asking my friends from home about it; hell, I even asked my  _mom_. She says you're the prettiest girl I've ever liked, by the way." Rachel just raises a brow at that. "I showed her your Facebook. Look. I don't care when it comes, but I know it will because I know how soulmates are supposed to feel about each other, and I just... I miss you when you're not around me, even if it's for like, two hours. When I think about my day at the end of it, you're like, the one person I feel like telling it all to. You're just, you know, the best person I've ever known."

She sits up now too, tugging her knees to her chest and just curling up against her headboard. She looks at him without saying anything for a few seconds, and then she just leans forward and presses a kiss to his top lip. She feels his mouth smile against hers when she does that.

"I don't care when my tattoo comes anymore, Finn, because you're the best person I've ever known, too."

"Do you mean it?"

She doesn't tell him she means it; she shows him.

—

Rachel cries when she doesn't win the first NYADA Freshman Winter Showcase.

Marley Rose does. She sings an Adele song that makes everyone in the room cry, and suddenly she's the shoe-in for the lead in the spring musical, and Rachel feels everything she busted her ass for all semester disappearing.

Except for one thing.

"I'm a sore loser, I know," she says, looking down instead of up at him, up at the boy she loves, holding a bouquet of pink flowers for her, even though she lost.

"You work really hard and you want it more than anyone. It's okay to be sad, but you shouldn't spend too much time comparing yourself to Marley, or to anyone. You're... you know... better than all of them."

She sniffles, and then she takes the sleeve of her dress to wipe the tears that are still falling from her eyes, only until Finn's eyes grow wide and she stops. "What, Finn?"

"Your -"

"My  _what_? Listen, I'm so happy you're here, and these flowers, they're beautiful, but I already know about the mascara-stained sleeve of my dress. I've been crying for the last half hour. I'll take it to the dry cleaner tomorrow, okay? You can come with me, there's a really cute hole-in-the-wall diner next door you'd like."

"Not that," he says, leaning forward and grabbing her by the wrist with the hand that isn't holding her bouquet. " _This_."

Rachel looks down at her exposed wrist, and she's got so many emotions flowing through her right now, why not add a few more? She got dressed for the showcase a few hours ago and  _that_ was definitely not  _there_.

"M-My tattoo," she says with a staggered breath. "I can't look, Finn."

"I'll look then."

And she squints her eyes like a child walking into their surprise birthday party, and Finn lets out this long breath when he pulls her wrist toward his face, and then he tells her it's safe to open her eyes, so she does.

"I told you I knew from the day I saw you," he says, and she just rubs the 'F.H' tattoo over and over and over, because she just has to make sure it's real. 

It is _very_ real.


End file.
